UPCOMING American lightweight boxer Keyshawn Davis has challenged Namibia’s Jeremiah Nakathila to a fight, but Nakathila’s camp is aiming for higher honours.
The 23-year-old Davis, who won gold at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, turned professional in February 2021 and has convincingly won his first seven fights, with five coming via knockout and two via points.
In his last fight two months ago, he won the vacant WBO Inter-Continental lightweight title after beating Juan Carlos Burgos of Mexico on points.
Davis has since reached number 11 in the WBO world rankings and is now keen to take on the experienced Namibian. The 33-year-old Nakathila has a record of 23 wins (19 via KO) and only two defeats and is still ranked highly by the world’s leading boxing organisations, with the WBC ranking him eighth in the world and the WBO tenth.
He put in an impressive display in his last fight when he beat former WBC super featherweight champion Miguel Berchelt on a sixth round stoppage to enhance his international standing, and Davis is now keen to fight him.
“Jeremiah Nakathila, that’s the fight that I want. His last fight, he beat the hell out of (Miguel) Berchelt. Tell Jeremiah Nakathila wassup, I want to fight him,” Davis told BoxingScene.com, which added that Nakathila gave an impressive performance against Berchelt.
“In his first fight at lightweight, Nakathila was thrown into the deep end against Miguel Berchelt. Anxious to make his own statement, Berchelt confidently stepped into the ring on March 26th, 2022. But while he grinned from ear to ear, Nakathila ultimately wiped the smug look off his face. After sending the former champion crashing down to the canvas in the third round, the 33-year-old violently ended his night in the sixth,” it reported.
“I feel like he’s even more dangerous now because he moved up to lightweight. He’s most likely feeling way better at that weight, way stronger at that weight, way more confident at that weight,” it quoted Davis as saying.
“After I f— him up, there ain’t gonna be no ifs, ands or buts of ‘oh Keyshawn world title this, world title that,” it added.
Nakathila’s trainer and manager Nestor Tobias, however, said that it was just a marketing stunt and didn’t take it too seriously.
“Davis is nothing special, it’s all just talk to market himself and he needs to use a big name like Jeremiah to do that. We will consider fighting anyone, it’s all about the offer, but at the moment Jeremiah is a much bigger name,” he said, adding that he had big plans for Nakathila.
“We will announce something very big for Jeremiah very soon. Our ultimate goal is still to challenge for the world title,” he said.
Devin Haney of the United States is the current undisputed lightweight world champion, having held the WBC title since 2019 and the WBA, WBO and IBF titles since 2022.
The lightweight division has several other top pugilists like Vasyl Lomachenko of Ukraine, Ryan Garcia and Shakur Stevenson of the United States, Gustavo Lemos of Argentina, and Isaac Cruz of Mexico, amongst others.